ICT Group will run citizens info center

ICT Group Inc. won a five-year, $29 million task order to operate the Federal Citizen's Information Center's National Contact Center, the company said today.

Under the one-year contract, which has four one-year options, and from its facility in Lakeland, Fla., ICT will respond to citizens' phone calls and e-mails to the National Contact Center.

The National Contact Center answers questions on behalf of several federal agencies, including the State Department's overseas citizens services hotline, the Interior Department's Fish and Wildlife Service public inquiry program, and the E-Gov initiative's GovBenefits.gov, Recreation.gov, Business.gov and Safecom. In fiscal 2004, the National Contact Center handled more than 1.5 million calls and 96,000 e-mails.

Under the task order, ICT will provide an integrated, multichannel solution to respond to: citizen inquiries via a toll-free information line; e-mail received via the FirstGov.gov Web site; and orders for consumer publications to be processed by the government's publication distribution center in Pueblo, Colo. On weekdays, ICT will supply workers to handle the inquiries as well as provide the FirstGov.gov Web site with a self-service, frequently-asked-questions tool that includes automated answers. ICT will be fully operating the contact center by March.

Based in Newtown, Pa., ICT provides customer management and business processing outsourcing solutions mainly for the private sector. The company has more than 12,000 employees and operates more than 40 contact centers in 11 states and eight foreign countries. It posted revenue of $298.1 million in 2003.